I went king fishing with Capt. Billy Miller this week targeting the Egmont ship channel. “The Ditch” as the channel is sometimes referred to is a well known go-to kingfish spot. The sharp edges of the dredged channel and the bouys lining the channel are all good spots for bait to hang around. Combine that with the god tidal movement in the channel and you have a very fishy combination.
We cast netted some white bait at the Ft. Desoto fishing pier before we headed offshore to markers 3 and 4. Upon arriving at our target we used Sabikis to catch some more bait around the markers.
Catching bait where you are fishing will give you the opportunity to match the hatch and give the fish the bait natural to the area.
We started slow trolling a spread of live cigar minnows, Spanish sardines and blue runners. Because the day was over cast we added a pink and white Tsunami duster in front of the cigar minnow and a chartreuse Tsunami duster in front of a Spanish sardine, all the rest of the baits we fished natural.
The idea of putting color in front of a natural bait is attraction. The color will catch the eye of the fish in the darker conditions hopefully attracting a bite.
We didn’t have much luck at markers 3 and 4 so Miller trolled us to markers 1 and 2. The bite wasn’t red hot there but we did catch a few kings and Spanish mackerel.
Moving out towards the “Whistler” sea buoy angler Brad Whery got a bite on the cigar minnow with the pink and white Tsunami duster. Whery fought the fish for a while with no indication of what it was.
As the mystery fish got closer to the boat it suddenly realized it was hooked and went crazy jumping. It was a 7 foot sailfish.
After a sporty 25 minute battle on 20 pound line, the big sail was photographed and released.
Sailfish are not normally caught that close to shore. However, during the spring and fall kingfish runs sailfish, which seem to be following the same bait migration as the kings, are sometimes caught by close to shore kingfish anglers.
#saltlife #yeticoolers #fishingwithbillmiller #tampabay #mercurymarine #wfngreatcatch #builtforthewild